The Need for the Imam — Page 29
D ar u rat-ul-Imam 29 Now, when satanic inspirations are so frequent, one will naturally doubt the credibility of all revelations. No revelation would seem to be reliable in view of the pos- sibility that it might be of satanic origin. More so, when the same thing happened to a great Prophet like Jesus as. This seriously undermines the credibility of the recipi- ents of revelation. Is revelation then a kind of ordeal? The answer to this question is that this is no occasion to lose heart, for it is the Divine Law that in this world everything valuable and precious is accompanied by adulterations. Look! there are pearls that are recovered from rivers and then there are cheap pearls which peo- ple make artificially and sell. Now the trade of genuine pearls cannot be stopped just because there are imitation pearls also, for the jewellers whom God Almighty has endowed with insight, recognize at a single glance the genuine pearl from the fake one. Hence, the jeweller of the pearls of revelation is the Imam of the age. By keeping his company, a person can readily distinguish between the real and the artificial. O mystics! O vic- tims of this alchemy! tread this path with care and remember that true revelation, which is purely from God Almighty, is accompanied by the following signs: 1. It is experienced in a state when the fire of an- guish melts a man’s heart and it flows towards God Almighty like limpid water. This is what the Hadith refers to, which states that the Holy Quran was re-